Dublin West schools to benefit under School Excellence Fund – Varadkar

An Taoiseach, Leo Varadkar TD, has welcomed the news that a number of Dublin West schools are to benefit under the new School Excellence Fund, announced by Education Minister Richard Bruton this week. The Fund aims to encourage excellence and innovation in teaching and learning in our schools by helping schools to collaborate on good ideas. The new School Excellence Fund is one of the many actions in the 2018 Action Plan for Education.

Sacred Heart of Jesus, Huntstown, Mary Mother of Hope Littleplace and Scoil Oilibhéir, Clonsilla will form part of a primary school cluster focusing on using digital technology to support the ongoing development of languages.

Colaiste Pobail Setanta will be part of a school cluster using Virtual Reality to provide an enhanced learning experience for pupils and students, in a variety of contexts, including, wellbeing, literacy and numeracy.

Speaking today An Taoiseach said:
“Schools are incubators of curiosity, creativity and learning. The School Excellence Fund aims to encourage schools to work together to enhance teaching and learning through digital learning. Each cluster of schools will receive up to €20,000 to support them throughout the course of the programme.

“The School Excellence Fund gives local school leaders and teachers the support to collaborate on ideas based on their local experience and knowledge. The Government wants to make Ireland home to the best Education and Training Service in Europe over the next 8 years. Innovative schemes such as the School Excellence Fund will be very important in achieving this aim.

“I hope the pupils in Dublin West who participate in the programme will enjoy experimenting with Virtual Reality and digital technologies as part of their learning process.”